YouTube is reportedly thinking about offering offer third-party subscriptions to video streaming services like Netflix, CBS and all.
It will give customers a chance to sign up for a wider range of streaming services from other entertainment companies.
Amazon and Apple already allow their customers to access other services. Amazon through it’s Amazon Channels initiative allows Prime Video subscribers and Fire TV owners to do this, and Apple too via Apple TV.
The two companies then get a cut of revenue from every sign-up. For instance, in 2019 alone, Amazon made $2.6 billion from channel subscriptions.
Suggestively, Google could be working around meeting rival Amazon and Apple on toes, by allowing customers to subscribe to other streaming services.
Google recently revealed YouTube Premium and YouTube Music. It has 20 million paid subscribers, while the TV package has over two million subscribers.
To add on, YouTube has two billion monthly users who watch and upload millions of hours of content for free.
Add it all up, and it certainly seems likely that YouTube would want to develop ways to further entice customers away from the likes of Apple and Amazon while also generating a new, lucrative revenue stream.
It’s a good business that Google is becoming more interested in as its subscription service on the YouTube side grows in general.
From close sources, YouTube has talked with several entertainment companies about adding their services. However, the status of the talks, held over the past several months, isn’t known.
A good percentage of YouTubers use other streaming services. While people who have access to streaming services, both paid and ad-supported. YouTube has the advantage of being able to lean on its advertising revenue. And it’s Google’s larger revenue to offset costs and possible losses.
Typically, the idea might take-off based on the fact that YouTube has 2 billion monthly users spending millions of hours watching content. 500 hours of video are uploaded every minute